Pictures of Philippine Typhoon Recovery, 10 weeks later

This past Friday, I returned from 2 weeks back in Leyte, Philippines, visiting with the Church of the Brethren Disaster Ministries to determine good partner organizations to work with in order to implement funds donated by church members and friends.  The pictures below are just a few of those we took of the destruction in Yolanda's wake.  Every picture is a story in and of itself, from the people we met cleaning around the stranded cargo ships, to the children jumping a rope next to shallow graves of family and friends.  

The man in the center of this picture is Roy Winter, director of Disaster Ministries, who was my traveling companion and is in charge of where all of the funds will go.  Roy is a really good guy, dedicated to helping as many people as possible, efficiently implementing every cent of those funds that friends have generously given to the effort.  In this picture, Roy survey's the damage in the coastal village of Magcasuang, Babangon, with a cohort of the cutest security guards around.

These are pictures of Grace Ann and Roussini, the cousins who braved the storm together and are featured in a recent post.

Below, you can see the tent city in the interior of the running track at Tanauan National High School, a site of some of the more severe destruction I saw while in Leyte.

Department of Labor and Employment personnel like those shown below are working to determine how to put people to work now that livelihoods like coconut gathering and fishing have been greatly diminished by the fierce storm surge and wind from the typhoon.